With Nialler9 throwing himself into some soul searching over how much life is left in that chest rattling beast they call dubstep, this Youtube video and the one below seemed too perfect not to share. It is shamelessly stolen from Prancehall's blog, but cuts to what dubstep appears to be for many now; a dedication to repetition, conformity to expectation and rigorous formula, things it once seemed to originally blow out against. For me AC Slater, Pirate Soundsystem, and Dexplicit seem to be taking things in a far more enjoyable direction than most dubstep production, though I'll still keep Shackleton and Appleblim's Soundboy Punishments for my reading sessions.

The kids in Toronto are raving about bassline, niche or what ever else they want to call it too. It slams around a club's systems in tandem with baltimore, grime, dancehall, juke, baile, all of the usual party banger mix. DJ'ing one style all night, something dubstep lends itself too, really seems tedious in comparison. Apparently bassline's what speed garage used to sound like, and if dubstep was some evolution of parts of garage (that's what the internet and tireless commentators have parroted so it must be true...) then maybe its a case of stepping back to go somewhat forward.

Fact Magazine have an interesting enough interview on one of the labels putting out such bassline, of course that master of the ghettobass Rupture has some links on it all too and John Eden has a pretty funny article making some serious points and, of course, Dissenus gets all psuedo-academic on it's ass. Anybody with pointers to more free downloads and other bassline artists will go home loaded with lots of virtual Soundtracksforthem candy. Either way Dexplicit who made his US debut courtesy of Trouble and Bass recently will be dropping a mix on Rupture's show on January 23rd.

Labels: bassline, Dubstep, niche, Vidiot